


Hang On To Yourself

by the_dala



Series: The Man Who Fell to Earth [5]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Comfort, Developing Relationship, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5836720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dala/pseuds/the_dala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You spent your whole life keeping everything locked up inside. You’re doing just fine being Finn.”</i>
</p><p>Finn and Poe work through sleeping arrangements, and dreams both good and bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hang On To Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fifth installment in a series based on Bowie song titles; two more stories left.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as [the-dala](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/the-dala)!

Finn had never dreamed when he was with the First Order; nor did he have insomnia, or fall asleep in the middle of the day, or wake up one minute before or after his alarm chirped. Some of that could be attributed to long years of discipline, which he still had trouble breaking sometimes, but the rest of it was due to a complicated cocktail of suppressants and stabilizers from which he was now officially in withdrawal. Dr. Kalonia had warned him that it would take time to adjust to life without it. She’d even offered non-addictive sleep aids when he found himself staring at the ceiling tiles at night. Finn had been tempted but ultimately refused, and he’d worked hard since then to develop normal sleeping patterns on his own.

It had been rough at first. Not so much when he was still under observation, since there were always people coming and going, and if he didn’t sleep as deeply as he might have he also didn’t dream much. After he was released to his new quarters, he found himself jerking awake nearly every night. The nightmares left him sweating and shaking and covering his mouth with both hands to keep from crying out. Even after more pleasant dreams he woke disoriented, unable to place himself in the unfamiliar surroundings.

It didn’t help that this was the first time he’d ever really slept alone. In fact one of his coping strategies (along with counting backwards from one hundred and naming each object in his line of sight, suggested by a med tech with a burn scar stretching over half her face) was visualizing someone breathing next to him. Slow and calm, not touching, just breathing in a rhythm he could match. Sometimes he thought of Rey and the meditation techniques she was learning, sometimes Kalonia and her measured voice; once or twice he had recalled Zeroes’ snoring in the bunk to his right. But most often it was Poe he imagined, patient and steady and understanding, as he’d been while helping Finn through rehab. It almost always worked, even later when he’d started to dream of Poe in an entirely different manner.

And later still, when he was back to sharing a room, he had to adapt anew. Years of needing to be ready for action at a moment’s notice had turned Poe into a light sleeper, so he usually stirred when Finn did (which was the cause of some distress until Poe managed to convince him, with his mouth and his hands as well as words, that he really didn’t mind). All of the absurdities dreamed up by an idle brain were still new to Finn, so he’d share the details he remembered: sprinting across the surface of a golden lake with Jess, Rey bringing home a giant sentient boulder and insisting it was her new pet, General Organa retiring from service to run a bar that catered exclusively to bounty hunters.

Poe would huff a laugh against the top of his head, and kiss him drowsily, and they’d go back to sleep. If they were still tired the next day and could finagle a spare half-hour from their duties, Poe liked to tug him down for a nap on top of the covers (Finn felt a little guilty about this, though not enough to keep him from dozing off with Poe’s sleep-heavy arm slung over his chest).

Those were the good dreams, but there were bad ones too. Poe’s nightmares were not silent; he muttered and tossed around and would burst out screaming if it went on too long. He usually lost sleep to the memory of having his mind violated by Kylo Ren - the pain, the things Ren had seen, the things he had _taken_. When that happened he wouldn’t talk about it after, just wrapped himself around Finn and breathed shallowly against his skin. Finn didn’t say anything either. He remembered those screams from the _Finalizer_ , from before he had a name, and held on as tight as he could until Poe’s heart stopped hammering under his ribs like it wanted to break free.

Sometimes, though, if he dreamed about someone he’d lost, he would tell Finn a story. Not about how they died, but how they’d lived - Muran, Ello, his mother. 

“She was the only person who could ever match me for stubbornness,” he whispered into the hollow of Finn’s collarbone one night. He’d dreamt of Black One exploding with Shara at the controls but then told Finn about when he was seven and refused to come down from his favorite tree for dinner. “I was mad about something, I don’t remember what. So Mom dragged the wood-fired grill over and cooked her famous nerf steaks right under the branches, smacking her lips and telling Dad that she was going to eat hers _and_ mine right up. It smelled so good I actually cried.”

Finn stroked his hair back, thumb tracing the curve of his eyebrow. “Did you climb down?”

“Of course not,” said Poe with a snort. “I snuck into the house after dark and found nothing but leftover veggies, so I went to bed with a rumbling stomach. In the morning Dad slipped chopped-up steak into my omelette and winked, while Mom pretended not to notice.” He nosed at Finn’s jaw, kissing the point of his chin. “She would’ve liked you - you have much better manners than I do.”

Finn didn’t have any family to speak of - none that could be remembered or retrieved from records, so far - but he understood that this was an enormously important thing Poe had just said. 

“I wish…” And he stopped, because there were so many ways to finish the sentence that they’d all flown out of his head, and he wished he had just kissed Poe instead of opening his big mouth.

But Poe pulled him closer, forearms in line with his shoulder blades, and sighed, “I know, buddy. Me too.”

He’d thought his own nightmares would get better with Poe at his side, and in a way he was right; they diminished significantly, leaving him with dreams that were funny or interesting or happy by turns. But when they did recur, it seemed they were stronger for their absence. And he found it harder to fight his way out of the fog, especially if there was some trigger for his fucked-up brain to latch onto. When a recon mission-turned-TIE skirmish ended with a barely conscious Poe crashing his shuttle into the lake south of the base, Finn spent two nights beside him in the med center. On the third night, the doc chased him out; he slept alone in Poe’s bed and woke in a blind panic. He’d dressed and armed himself and made it halfway to the door before remembering where he was, who he’d become.

Not long after Poe was released from care, Finn requested an assignment as medical detail on a mission led by Major Ematt. The general approved it, even though he hadn’t been off-base in several months, because they were investigating a suspected stormtrooper training camp. It turned out to be a group of teenage cadets who’d been separated from their cadre in the evacuation of Starkiller. They had gone into hiding on Ord Mantell, maintaining an illusion of order while waiting to be reclaimed.

The official report considered their efforts a success: most of the exhausted would-be troopers were already beginning to accept the First Order wasn’t coming back for them, and they surrendered to Resistances forces when they were promised amnesty. But two of them stood back to back and tried to fight their way out.

Finn didn’t close his eyes at all his first night back. On the second night, he had to count down to twenty-three before he came back to himself. It was only then that he realized he’d lashed out in his sleep. Poe shrugged off the black eye and said it had simply taught him not to touch Finn when he was caught up like that, which he should’ve realized to begin with.

Finn was sick over it for days, creeping out of bed after Poe had dropped off to sleep fitfully on the floor. Which led to their first real fight, which led to him sleeping fitfully on Rey’s floor (or more precisely in the hammock she’d used until she adjusted to an actual bed). She allowed him to wallow for exactly forty-eight hours before telling him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t going to run this time.

“He isn’t some innocent that needs protecting, and you don’t get to decide what he can or can’t handle,” Rey said, fixing him in place with just a look. Finn might have thought she’d learned the trick from Skywalker if he didn’t know she’d been born with that steel in her spine, Jedi or no. “Go and talk to him and figure it out, or I’ll get Jess for backup.” 

As if on cue, BB-8 came rolling through the doorway to unload a flurry of whistles and beeps at Finn. His knowledge of binary was still piecemeal, but he definitely caught his own signature as well as [organic idiocy] and [sad Friend-Poe] and [electric probe]. Properly chastened (because Rey was right, of course, and because missing Poe was carving out a hole in his chest), he let the droid chivvy him down the hall. He went and they talked and they figured it out. He explained what had worked for him in the early days, and Poe promised he would speak up if he thought they needed to see one of the base therapists. 

“Trust me, we wouldn’t be the first. This place is full of people who’ve been through all kinds of hell, and plenty of ‘em find it hard to open up. But that’s what I’m here for, you know,” Poe said, holding Finn’s hands in his lap, his eyes searching Finn’s face to make sure he understood. “We’re in this together, you and me.”

Finn leaned forward, dropping his forehead to Poe’s shoulder. He would’ve been more comfortable having this conversation in the dark, but somehow it seemed important to drag it out into the daylight, and anyway he might hurt Poe’s feelings if he ordered the lights out. “I just thought I’d be better by now,” he mumbled into the worn fabric of Poe’s shirt. 

“Sweetheart, you spent your whole life keeping everything locked up inside,” Poe said, curving his hand over the nape of Finn’s neck. “You’re doing just fine being Finn.”

That familiar scent of engine oil and open air filled Finn’s lungs when he breathed in, the endearment warming him to his core. Poe had always uttered Finn’s name often and was constantly peppering his speech with _buddy_ and _pal_ , but he did that with most of his friends (and a few people he didn’t much care for, to Finn’s puzzlement). Recently he had begun trying out other designations - _sweetheart_ , _babe_ , _beautiful_ \- always looking at Finn from under his lashes to see how each one was received. Given that he was prone to conducting this experiment during sex, Finn’s reactions were not difficult to decipher. 

(Though there had been one time when he’d headed off for a command meeting with a quick kiss and a _mi cielo_. Rey, stealing sausages off of Finn’s plate as usual, wondered aloud what it meant; Jess grinned at him across the table, her eyes dancing, and claimed it translated to “my sky.” Finn had hidden his face in his mug of caf for the next five minutes.)

He hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to say anything back - what sounded sweet coming from Poe’s lips felt clumsy and awkward on his own. But he drew Poe down on the bed and spoke his name in between heated, desperate kisses, hoping that Poe would hear everything he meant.

It was quiet again for a little while, until it wasn’t.

Four of the young ex-troopers had elected to rebuild their lives with the Resistance, a long and arduous process which Finn knew better than anyone. He met with them regularly and tried to help as best he could, but a boy who had named himself Oren was having an especially rough time of it. When he shot a sentry in the leg while trying to steal a speeder, the general pulled Finn aside and quietly explained that he would have to be kept under guard once he was released from the med center. They couldn't let him leave the base, not after everything he'd seen here, but neither could they trust him to move freely. Finn had nodded, his back straight, and said he understood. 

That night he went back to their quarters and tried to wear himself out under Poe's touch, his mouth, his body. Poe gave him everything he could, but they both knew he wouldn't sleep easy.

He made no sound when he woke (they weren’t permitted, he would be written up, he’d seen it happen) but his pulse was racing and he was struggling to breathe and a line of phantom fire was licking up the old wound on his spine. 

“Hey.”

A low, even voice beside him. His body jerked in response, fists curling in against his chest. They weren’t allowed in each other’s beds, either - that would earn him a lot more than a note in his file.

“What’s your name?”

“FN-2…” He stopped himself, frowning in the darkness. But it wasn’t full dark; a small window on the south wall filtered moonlight across the room. 

“Finn,” he tried. It sounded right, it felt right even if he didn’t know why, so he said it again. “My name is Finn.”

“What year is it?”

“53? No, wait,” he said, anxious as always to answer correctly, “it’s 34.” He would turn twenty-four this year, or maybe he already had - no, he had a day now, he picked it, it wasn’t for another seven months.

“What planet are we on?”

He almost said D’qar, but they’d moved base. “Parnassia Prime.” And he had moved too, into this room with the window and the double bed.

“Where does Rey live?”

 _Rey_.

“Three doors down on the left.” He hoped he hadn’t woken her up. She could feel it sometimes when he was upset, especially when he was nearby. If he breathed deep, he could almost smell the star-lilies hanging inside her door.

“What season is it?”

“Winter.” Parnassia had a species of tall, spreading tree which grew fruit only at the very top at this time of year. They were supposed to go climbing and pick some on their last rest day, but it had snowed.

_Snow - the cold - a red glow slashing through the trees -_

“Stay with me, Finn. Breathe. What do you see in the corner by the door?”

His eyes tracked to the left, under the window, where a low-power light blinked blue on a round metal body. “BeeBee-Ate, recharging. A poster - no, a painting, with circles and rectangles and fourteen different colors.” But he couldn’t see them now, could he? “Two pairs of boots.”

“Good. And on the other side?”

“Desk and computer monitor, and a chair with a flightsuit on it.” Because it was asking too much to put it in the hamper, apparently. The hamper was not in his line of sight, but he knew it was to the right of the bed without having to see it.

Finn took an easier breath; the knot in his throat had loosened. He’d been propped up on his elbows but now he let his muscles relax, let his head fall back on the pillow. He could just make out the man lying beside him, his profile limned in moonlight.

“What did we have for dinner?”

“That spicy stew with the root vegetables that the general likes so much, and citrus-tart for dessert.” A sense-memory lingered on his tongue, and he smiled. “Snap and I split a second piece and then I ate yours because you don’t like it, because there’s something wrong with your tastebuds.”

Poe’s hand reached out and he caught it, clasped it to his chest.

“What’s my name?”

Finn uncurled his fingers one by one, touching them to his lips. “Poe Dameron,” he said, tracing the lines on Poe’s palm. “Son of Kes and Shara, commander of the fighter squadrons, poster boy of the Resistance -”

“Hey, I made Iolo tear that up!” 

“And the craziest, most dashing pilot in the galaxy.” 

“Editorializing a bit, but I’ll take it.” He laid his head down on Finn’s shoulder. “And what else am I?”

Finn turned his face so that Poe’s soft curls tickled his nose. “Mine,” he murmured, sliding his arm around Poe’s waist beneath the coverlet.

“Damn straight,” said Poe with evident satisfaction. He heaved a long sigh that Finn felt all the way to his toes. 

He drifted back to sleep, Poe stretched over him to hold him fast, and dreamed about a bright sun in a summer sky.

**Author's Note:**

> A note on the dates: SW timelines are usually traced from the Battle of Yavin but I can't see the First Order using that date, so I counted back to the founding of the Empire for Finn's initial recall.


End file.
